All the smart money seems to be on the Tories taking the seat from Labour, with the LibDems and Greens scrapping for third place.

But - annoyingly - there is a glaring omission from this list, and that would happen to be a representative of the far left. Paraphrasing a dead Russian, vote catching may well be the lowest form of class struggle but they are an essential property of British political life. I'm sure it wouldn't have been beyond the ken of the far left as a collective to have fielded a candidate we could all rally around. But it hasn't happened, and so we can chalk it up as another missed by-election opportunity.

Well, a chance to vote for Craig Murray is not to be missed (unless it's a different Craig Murray). Other than that, I think the Greens are occupying an awful lot of the space that would be occupied by a new left party. Some of the bits of it that they don't occupy are very important - the trade union bits in particular - but I'm not convinced there's enough room to build a Left party alongside the Greens.

I'm sure most of the left will be voting either for Murray or Read (who's getting a lot of stick in the lib dem leaflets for being a left extremist incidentally) but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing there's no left candidate, although not for the reasons you might assume.

I think knowing what you're doing is important and the hard left is extremely weak in Norwich so a hastily put together candidacy that gets one percent doesn't make any difference to anyone - and it doesn't really matter whether that candidate was on the ballot paper or not - apart from serving to demoralise the left perhaps.

Far better I think to wish for an actually existing left that is organised and competent than to wish for a candidate just for the sake of one.

I think people should be comfortable with the idea of their organsiation/whatever not standing in places where their vote would be embarrassing or counter productive.

"We are starting to hear about the many MPs who earn thousands through second jobs and directorships, who instead of listening to their constituents are listening to big banks and corporations. If I am elected, my only job will be to serve and represent the people of Norwich North at Westminster" [http://rupertsread.blogspot.com/2009/07/yes-to-no-second-jobs-pledge-media.html]

"Train privatisation, from the beginning, was a very flawed model. We can't keep socialising private companies' losses and privatising their profits. We need a national train network under direct public control and with full public accountability." [http://rupertsread.blogspot.com/2009/07/greens-welcome-public-ownership-of-east.html]

Although the Greens have some good policies, Read is a narcisistic cock, seemingly determined to make a career in politics.

He says a few daft things (seemingly off the cuff) and has made some serious gaffes that don't endear to him to some left-minded people, never mind the public. The animal rights agenda and bans on stem-cell research are off-putting personally, along with some anti-Israel rants etc